Saving the Internet in Europe: How EFF Works in Europe

EFF update
1 week 3 days ago

This post is part one in a series of posts about EFF’s work in Europe.

EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. While our work has taken us to far corners of the globe, in recent years we have worked to expand our efforts in Europe, building up a policy team with key expertise in the region, and bringing our experience in advocacy and technology to the European fight for digital rights.

In this blog post series, we will introduce you to the various players involved in that fight, share how we work in Europe, and how what happens in Europe can affect digital rights across the globe.

Why EFF Works in Europe

European lawmakers have been highly active in proposing laws to regulate online services and emerging technologies. And these laws have the potential to impact the whole world. As such, we have long recognized the importance of engaging with organizations and lawmakers across Europe. In 2007, EFF became a member of the European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRi), a collective of NGOs, experts, advocates and academics that have for two decades worked to advance digital rights throughout Europe. From the early days of the movement, we fought back against legislation threatening user privacy in Germany, free expression in the UK, and the right to innovation across the continent.

Over the years, we have continued collaborations with EDRi as well as other coalitions including IFEX, the international freedom of expression network, Reclaim Your Face, and Protect Not Surveil. In our EU policy work, we have advocated for fundamental principles like transparency, openness, and information self-determination. We emphasized that legislative acts should never come at the expense of protections that have served the internet well: Preserve what works. Fix what is broken. And EFF has made a real difference: We have ensured that recent internet regulation bills don’t turn social networks into censorship tools and safeguarded users’ right to private conversations. We also helped guide new fairness rules in digital markets to focus on what is really important: breaking the chokehold of major platforms over the internet.

Recognizing the internet’s global reach, we have also stressed that lawmakers must consider the global impact of regulation and enforcement, particularly effects on vulnerable groups and underserved communities. As part of this work, we facilitate a global alliance of civil society organizations representing diverse communities across the world to ensure that non-European voices are heard in Brussels’ policy debates.

Our Teams

Today, we have a robust policy team that works to influence policymakers in Europe. Led by International Policy Director Christoph Schmon and supported by Assistant Director of EU Policy Svea Windwehr, both of whom are based in Europe, the team brings a set of unique expertise in European digital policy making and fundamental rights online. They engage with lawmakers, provide policy expertise and coordinate EFF’s work in Europe.

But legislative work is only one piece of the puzzle, and as a collaborative organization, EFF pulls expertise from various teams to shape policy, build capacity, and campaign for a better digital future. Our teams engage with the press and the public through comprehensive analysis of digital rights issues, educational guides, activist workshops, press briefings, and more. They are active in broad coalitions across the EU and the UK, as well as in East and Southeastern Europe.

Our work does not only span EU digital policy issues. We have been active in the UK advocating for user rights in the context of the Online Safety Act, and also work on issues facing users in the Balkans or accession countries. For instance, we recently collaborated with Digital Security Lab Ukraine on a workshop on content moderation held in Warsaw, and participated in the Bosnia and Herzegovina Internet Governance Forum. We are also an active member of the High-Level Group of Experts for Resilience Building in Eastern Europe, tasked to advise on online regulation in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

EFF on Stage

In addition to all of the behind-the-scenes work that we do, EFF regularly showcases our work on European stages to share our mission and message. You can find us at conferences like re:publica, CPDP, Chaos Communication Congress, or Freedom not Fear, and at local events like regional Internet Governance Forums. For instance, last year Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian C. York gave a talk with Svea Windwehr at Berlin’s re:publica about transparency reporting. More recently, Senior Speech and Privacy Activist Paige Collings facilitated a session on queer justice in the digital age at a workshop held in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There is so much more work to be done. In the next posts in this series, you will learn more about what EFF will be doing in Europe in 2025 and beyond, as well as some of our lessons and successes from past struggles.

Jillian C. York

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